pre-Revolutionary Bolshevik propaganda and the early Soviet propaganda. The aforementioned propaganda is studied here in light of the theories of the Russian marxist V. I. Lenin and the dialogist M. Bakhtin. Bakhtins idea about dialogue and dialogisation is studied on different planes: the development of ideas, communication, and relations between different discourses and genres. His dialogical thinking is put up against Lenins Marxism. The paper analyzes, on the background of their theories, why work with propaganda became one of the party's main tasks.

Furthermore, the study analyzes how Lenin regarded communication between the conscious addressers (the party members) and the unconscious addressee (the population). He thought that the addressers could create the correct socialistic consciousness in the different classes. Despite these ideas, a gap developed between the socialist ideology and the revolutionary propaganda: religious aspects within propaganda, and the cults around the

revolutionaries and especially the Bolshevik leader Lenin. The addressees responded active to the propaganda, and among their responses one can find anecdotes. They are contrasted against the propaganda in the paper.

In the light of Bakhtins theories the study discusses the background for the Bolshevik propaganda's break with the socialist ideology, the development of anecdotes, and their relation to propaganda, their presentation of the world and their persecution, which actually was not mentioned by Lenin. The persecution continued throughout the Soviet era, but in spite of this the anecdotes appeared to be impossible to eradicate. During the building of socialism, when the total propaganda developed, the anecdotes ridiculed the